Small tea growers, claiming to be contributing more than 50% to the total national yield of the green beverage, have raised their demand for higher level of recognition. The field level production tire of the industry wants the recognition as Government's first priority to the 'tea farmers' instead of 'tea estates.'
Small tea growers, claiming to be contributing more than 50% to the total national yield of the green beverage, have raised their demand for higher level of recognition. The field level production tire of the industry wants the recognition as Government's first priority to the 'tea farmers' instead of 'tea estates.'
"We want the tea policies to be made with first consideration to the interests of small growers, who are actually tea farmers, instead of established tea estates," said Bijoy Gopal Chakraborty, President, Confederation of Indian Small tea Growers Association. CISTA is the national conglomeration of over 2.5 lakh small tea growers, each one with less than acre of plantation area.
The federation has sent a charter of demand with this as the prime one in it to Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu on Monday.
According to CISTA, against India's total made tea output of 1250 Million Kg(Mkg), 550 Mkg is produced by the stand alone factories not owned by any tea estates. These are known as Bought Leaf Factories(BLF). Small growers, without own factories, feed these BLFs. Considering this, Indian Tea Board (ITB) shows this 550 Mkg as STGs contribution to total output.
But, "Many established gardens also buy good volume of green leaf from us to increase their factory capacity utilization level. Including that our contribution to total national green leaf production is much more than 50%. Eventually, we deserve the first priority," said Chakroborty.
In addition, tea estates enjoy priority as it provides employment support to around 1.2 million heads. But, "Total number heads engaged in small tea gardens is over 2.5 million. That also makes us deserving of higher priority," he added.
However reluctant to come on record on this, senior ITB officials said, "Whether the policy making pattern needs to be amended or not is a matter to be decided by the Government. But the board always decides policies keeping overall industry interests like including betterment of production or better price realization etc. No individual sector is given any extra importance."
"We want the tea policies to be made with first consideration to the interests of small growers, who are actually tea farmers, instead of established tea estates," said Bijoy Gopal Chakraborty, President, Confederation of Indian Small tea Growers Association. CISTA is the national conglomeration of over 2.5 lakh small tea growers, each one with less than acre of plantation area.
The federation has sent a charter of demand with this as the prime one in it to Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu on Monday.
According to CISTA, against India's total made tea output of 1250 Million Kg(Mkg), 550 Mkg is produced by the stand alone factories not owned by any tea estates. These are known as Bought Leaf Factories(BLF). Small growers, without own factories, feed these BLFs. Considering this, Indian Tea Board (ITB) shows this 550 Mkg as STGs contribution to total output.
But, "Many established gardens also buy good volume of green leaf from us to increase their factory capacity utilization level. Including that our contribution to total national green leaf production is much more than 50%. Eventually, we deserve the first priority," said Chakroborty.
In addition, tea estates enjoy priority as it provides employment support to around 1.2 million heads. But, "Total number heads engaged in small tea gardens is over 2.5 million. That also makes us deserving of higher priority," he added.
However reluctant to come on record on this, senior ITB officials said, "Whether the policy making pattern needs to be amended or not is a matter to be decided by the Government. But the board always decides policies keeping overall industry interests like including betterment of production or better price realization etc. No individual sector is given any extra importance."